Identifying & Minimizing Professional Liability Risks for APNs - Essay Sample

How an Organization can Identify and Minimize Potential Risks Regarding Professional Liability for APNs

There are various management strategies that a healthcare organization should put in place to easily detect and abate probable risks concerning professional liability for Advanced Practice Nurses (Burroughs, Dmytrow & Lewis, 2007). This, however, can be done using care nurse practitioners. Burroughs et al. (2007), denotes that, an organization can achieve this by ensuring that nurse practitioners collaborate with supervision agreements. In this strategy, an organization certifies that nurse practitioners abide by supervision agreements as required by state or federal laws. In the same parallel, the organization should ensure that nurse practitioners maintain effectively professional liability limits as postulated by the law. Conversely, the organization should create an appropriate scope of practice in which it annually reviews treatment standards of nurse practitioners to ensure that they comply with clinical protocols and State nurse practice acts.

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On the other hand, the other strategy that an organization should implement is facilitating the documentation of diagnosis (Burroughs et al., 2007). This will help to reduce the frequency of diagnosis claims made and at the same time the organization will easily analyze the clinical decision-making process and the protocols nurses use to establish a diagnosis. In a similar approach, the organization should put an effort to facilitate screening and diagnostic testing (Wilson, 2017). It should ensure that nurse practitioners obtain screening tests such as PAP tests, mammograms, TB tests, colonoscopies, to mention a few (Burroughs et al., 2007). These screening tests should be acquired at regular intervals and they should be age-specific. Moreover, nurse practitioners should consult with clinical specialists if in need to ensure that reasonable diagnostic possibilities are found, and at the same time, they should address referral when writing the health record information of a patient.

The Strategies or Actions that APNs Can Utilize to Ensure Effective Risk Management

Nurse practitioners, like other health care providers, are susceptible to professional liability prerogatives. The liability poses a clinical, financial, legal, and operational challenges for the NPs, their workers, and physician supervisors The Certified Nursing Assistant guide (CNO), and the Nurses Service Organization (NSO) have availed specialized insurance coverage for nurse, and are working to improve their risk awareness (Certified Nurse Assistant, & Nurse Service Organization, 2015). Nurse practitioners should conduct consistent, age-specific, screening tests such as mammograms, PSA levels, and TB tests, and important diagnostic tests (Burroughs et al., 2007). It will help to eliminate risks that emanate from wrong diagnoses and improve patient outcomes.

Gesme, & Wiseman (2012) recognize that risk of errors is more prone when a patient is hospitalized, and they have developed some strategies to alleviate the risk of harm to hospitalized patients. For example, NPs should check keenly the labels on the intravenous bags to ensure hospitalized patients in Intensive Care Units get the right medication (Gesme & Wiseman, 2012). When deliberating the patient's diagnostic plan, NPs should prudently accentuate any probable risks connected to treatment, medications being suggested (Burroughs et al., 2007). For instance, they should document all discussions such as patient's consent to the refusal of treatment, and client rationale for continuation of treatment (MedPro Group, 2017). By developing a well-articulated informed consent treatment plan can become a good strategy to ensure there is effective risk management.

Cancer chemotherapy drug adminstration is a challenging therapeutic process and requires high levels of competency, and safety to avert errors that might cause harm to patients and staff. Eedes, Bailey & Burger (2018) conducted a study on chemotherapy and discovered that 17 errors per 1000 chemotherapy do occur in prescribed orders. In order to reduce errors and any possible harm caused to patients getting chemotherapy include; Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS), clear chemotherapy administration process (Eedes, Bailey & Burger, 2018). Chemotherapy should administer in an environment where the safety of patient is regarded. The utilization of practical procedures, checklists, and SOPs will help to decrease medical errors in chemotherapy administration and ensure effective risk management plans for cancer patients (Eedes et al., 2018).

How Apns Will Keep Up to Standards of Care as They Practice

Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) maintains standards of care as they practice within the organization by abiding by the State nurse practice laws (Wilkinson, 2013). For APNs to keep up with the standard of care, they are supposed to keep their patient's personal health information secret (Olsen, Dixon, Grey, DeshefyLonghi & Demarest, 2005). They are not supposed to release unauthorized medical information to the third party unless there is consent. The patient's healthcare information will be kept private to the fact that not even the family should know the patient's condition. Similarly, APNs will simply ensure that the patient has a right to informed consent (Olsen et al., 2005). They will be required to explain to the patient all risks, benefits or alternative options to treatment. The patient will then make a competent decision and give consent before the treatment.

Nurse Practitioners will also maintain standards of care as they practice by retaining superior quality ratings (Wilkinson, 2013). They can, however, help achieve good quality ratings through developing personal measures that will prepare them for practice-wide systems, which are compliant with performance guidelines and nursing acts. At the same time, they should understand the current performance measures in use so that they can avoid impairment or fraud. Nurse practitioners should also dispense controlled drugs appropriately. They can maintain the standards of care by specifically checking the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program database to see the State's acts. It is also recommended that APNs can follow at least one current guideline from an association or agency when giving prescriptions.

References

Burroughs, R., Dmytrow, B., & Lewis, H. (2007). Trends in nurse practitioner professional liability: an analysis of claims with risk management recommendations. Journal of Nursing Law, 11(1), 53. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Burroughs%20et%20al1.pdf

Olsen, D. P., Dixon, J. K., Grey, M., DeshefyLonghi, T., & Demarest, J. C. (2005). Privacy concerns of patients and nurse practitioners in primary care-an APRNet study. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 17(12), 527-534. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.895.1139&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Wilkinson, J. E. (2013). The perceived impact of advanced practice nurses (APNs) on promoting evidence-based practice amongst frontline nurses: findings from a collective case study. Journal of Research in Nursing, 18(4), 384-385. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.817.2958&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Wilson, T. R. (2017). Time and np practice: naming, claiming, and explaining the role of nurse practitioners. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 13(9), 583-589. Retrieved from: https://www.npjournal.org/article/S1555-4155(17)30602-5/fulltext

Certified Nurse Assistant, & Nurse Service Organization. (2015). Nurse Professional Liability Exposures: 2015 Claim Report Update. Retrieved from: https://www.cna.com/web/wcm/connect/e05b5d91-cf38-444d-8727-ab65f25f8f6a/RC_Health_Nurses_Claim_Report_Update_101615.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=e05b5d91-cf38-444d-8727-ab65f25f8f6a

Eedes, D. J., Bailey, B., & Burger, H. (2018). Chemotherapy administration standards and guidelines: The development of a resource document. SA Journal of Oncology, 2(1), 1-6. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Chemotherapy_administration_standards_and_guidelin.pdf

Gesme, D. H., & Wiseman, M. (2012). Reduce risks to patients in your practice. Journal of oncology practice, 8(1), e11. Retrieved from: https://ascopubs.org/doi/pdfdirect/10.1200/JOP.2011.000485

MedPro Group. (2017). Patient Safety and Risk Solutions: Risk Management Strategies for Informed Consent. pp.1-20. Retrieved from: https://www.medpro.com/documents/10502/2837997/Guideline_Risk+Management+Strategies+for+Informed+Consent.pdf